Disabled young people face disproportionate barriers in Britain's music industry

EXCLUSIVE

Disabled young people are being excluding from pursuing a career in Britain's world leading music industry because of "disproportionate barriers" they face accessing education and opportunities. A damning new report finds that their participation across the arts is "lower, shorter-term, and more likely to be home-based", and that they "frequently encounter discrimination, fear of judgement, lack of youth voice and agency, limiting expectations, and tokenism"

And the Excluded by Design study also finds that just 9% of the workforce in the creative sector are disabled, compared to 16% in the general UK workforce. That is despite a small number of high profile artists such as Def Leppard's one-armed drummer Rick Allen and blind superstar Stevie Wonder helping raise awareness through their work.

In response Youth Music, the UK's leading charity helping marginalised young people make and monetise music, has unveiled a new £2.25 million fund titled Shift the Scene which aims to improve access to the arts and creative education for disabled children and young people.

Leading calls for the urgent need to break down barriers is Bafta award winning TV presenter, disability advocate and former Strictly Come Dancing star George Webster.

He said: "There aren't many opportunities in music for young people with disabilities, and this needs to change. Music is a way of having voices heard. Young people with a disability need to be heard, too. Music will give them an amazing opportunity to stand-up for themselves and for them to change the world's old-fashioned views and perspectives on disability."

The Express's Strike A Chord campaign is battling to help restore the UK's floundering music education after numbers of students taking GCSE and music A-Levels plummeted to critical levels. And it is also calling for better protection for grassroots venues to secure the talent pathways for young people from all backgrounds.

The new fund will offer grants of up to £200,000 to organisations in England who provide creative opportunities for disabled children and young people, pushing for genuine inclusion, ambition and accessibility.

Youth Music CEO, Matt Griffiths, says: "The arts sector is failing disabled young people. There are some brilliant people and organisations out there offering disabled people creative opportunities, but the research tells us they're the exception, not the norm. The proportion of disabled people in the arts workforce is increasing, but it remains woefully low.

"But the barriers they face are not inevitable - we can all bring more equity by giving extra support to those who need it the most."

Matt believes the music industry must learn from the sports sector - and highlights how a major event such as the 2012 London Paralympics helped transform participation in the UK.

He said: "We now see people in sports with all sorts of disabilities doing incredible things and it opened pathways that were previously shut. People who moaned about putting accessibility in their businesses and whatever else were suddenly really willing to do so.

"If people can 'see it' they can envisage it and they have role models performing on stage that they can relate to. I think the sports sector are way ahead and it's not like a short-term project for disabled or neurodiverse people. It's embedded in policy for the different governing organisations and that's something music and the arts needs to replicate."